I don’t understand how we deal with countries that blatantly defy human rights. Do you? The Feminist Majority doesn’t either.

Right now the Obama Administration is negotiating a global trade deal that would force the U.S. into a special economic relationship with the anti-women’s rights, anti-human rights Sultan of Brunei – the same dictator who recently enacted an outrageous “kill-a-gay” and “flog-a-woman” penal code.

Only months ago, the Sultan decreed that “crimes” such as adultery, extramarital sex, or sex between men would be punished with death by stoning – a horrific practice that usually involves burying a person so only the head is exposed and then pelting that individual to death. The Sultan’s gruesome new penal code also calls for whipping lesbians and for the imprisonment of women who become pregnant outside marriage, women who have abortions, and anyone engaging in so-called “indecent behavior.”

So far, instead of condemning Brunei, the U.S. has rewarded the Sultan by continuing to include the oil-rich nation in talks to form the largest free trade agreement in the world, the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). What’s more, Congress is considering “Fast Track” legislation, which would help push through the TPP by forcing Congress to vote on it after only limited debate and without being able to offer any amendments – not only regarding human rights, but on any of the other problems with the TPP impacting jobs, access to affordable medicine, environmental regulations, or food safety.